DEAR BRUTUS Southwark Playhouse

It is ridiculous that the only play of J M Barrie that is regularly revived is Peter Pan. Dear Brutus, which many think his masterpiece, is about a group of people being given a second chance and Barrie observes the pain, comedy and farce that self-knowledge can bring Strange things are liable to happen on Midsummer Night. Her ladyship finds herself having an impassioned affair with the butler A philandering egoist is not sure whether it is his wife he loves or his mistress. All three end up behaving like the juvenile lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Barrie has always enjoyed mixing the real and the fantasy world. The most poignant scene comes when an alcoholic artist, unhappily married and childless, has a vision of the daughter he never had. Jonathan O’Boyle’s production at Southwark Playhouse is sensitively acted.